About the the most challenging concepts to fully grasp about health and the way the human body works, is that everything has a reason and although some things like reactive oxygen species can be harmful, they are also absolutely necessary.

The trouble lies in how our lives and our environment have evolved much faster than we can keep pace with. Consider something as basic as the consumption of grains. You know, grains like corn, rice and wheat? I thought that we were designed to eat them, but that’s not the situation. Our cells and basic digestive needs haven’t advanced since our cavemen – hunter/gatherer roots and hunter gatherers did not grow wheat. Although we’ve been relying on bread for centuries, there are quite a few scientists and nutritionists who will say that truly -those foods don’t fit with our design.

So, if we haven’t evolved enough to eat the plants we’ve been farming for thousands of years, just ponder how our bodies (at a cellular level) are reacting to factors like cigarrette smoke, alcohol, smog, drugs and the chemicals that are included in our foods.

The answer is”Not at all”

Now look at free radicals which are also called ROS or Reactive Oxygen Species – ages before we had so many new external sources of reactive oxygen species, they were produced by our bodies as a normal byproduct of our metabolic and immune processes AND we had the native ability to preserve control of them. That has altered and for a lot of people it’s very important to take in antioxidants to control free radicals that our lifestyles have inflicted on our bodies. That’s one reason for all the talk about antioxidants, but there is actually another factor to think about. Another point of view is that although ROS can be highly toxic, redox reactions are also part of the basic chemical process of life. Lately, it has become increasingly evident that ROS/redox molecules also play a role in the regulation of many intracellular communication pathways that are essential for normal cell growth and immune reactions that are essential for our defense.

One example is Nitric Oxide which performs a function in nerve and vascularnerve and vascular function and regulation of the immune responses. Another even more stunning example is that ASEA, which contains millions of redox signaling molecules can increase the effectiveness of your body’s antioxidants by over 500%

ROS are an essential component of many metabolic pathways; they fuel the fire of basic energy productions. Our bodies have had to evolve complex processes to live with these reactive molecules and seem also to have evolved to use the reactive nature of these molecules for intracellular communication. Thus, a key concept in dealing with redox reactions must be to regulate but not eradicate, for turning off production of ROS is tantamount to turning off the engine that powers us.